The Millionaire Mystery Page 14

  ‘But if Joe declares that Lestrange is Sophy’s father?’

  ‘He is not my father!’ cried Sophy. ‘His story is a lie! I am the daughter of Richard Marlow.’

  ‘Sophia! This man—your father!’ wailed Miss Vicky. ‘Oh dear, what is all this?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when we get home,’ said the girl. ‘Alan, I will send Joe to the inn at once.’

  And she led the weeping Vicky from the room.

  ‘Let me come, Alan. You will want a witness.’

  ‘Joe will be witness enough,’ said the young man decisively. ‘No, sir; better let me see him alone; there may be rough work. Your cloth—’

  ‘Deuce take my cloth!’ cried the Rector. ‘Bless me, may I be forgiven! My cloth might keep the peace.’

  ‘I don’t want the peace kept,’ retorted Thorold. ‘Unless that Creole Frenchman apologizes I’ll thrash him!’

  The Rector stared, and well he might. All the well-bred composure had gone from Alan’s face and manner, the veneer of civilization was stripped off, and man, primeval man, showed naked and unashamed. He stared back at the clergyman, and for quite a minute the two looked at one another. Then the younger man turned and left the room, and Mr Phelps made no attempt to stay him. He knew that he might as well have tried to chain a whirlwind. He bowed to circumstances and sat down again to his wine.

  ‘I hope to Heaven he’ll keep himself in hand,’ he muttered, without his usual self-apology for swearing. ‘Lestrange is dangerous; but Alan, in his present mood, is more so. I should not care to be the man to meet him with that look on his face. Dear! dear!’ The little man sighed. ‘I wish all these mysteries were over and done with, and we could resume the quiet tenor of our way.’

  Meantime, Alan was making for the inn. It was just on nine o’clock, and the night had turned out wet. As he had no overcoat, the rain was soaking him. But he did not care for that. His blood was on fire to meet this man and force the truth out of him. He was certain that Lestrange could explain much if he chose; and whether he chose or not, Alan intended that he should speak out. He was determined that an end should be put to these troubles.

  The rain whipped his face and drenched him, but he walked on steadily. There was no gas in Heathton, which was so far uncivilized, and the roads were dark and miry. Not until he got into the principal street did he leave the mud and the darkness behind him. Then before him glimmered the feeble lantern over the door, with which Mrs Timber illuminated the entrance to her premises. Alan could hear the drowsy voices of the villagers sitting over their ale in the taproom—heard above the rest the pompous speech of Cicero, who was evidently playing his favourite part of Sir Oracle.

  In the hall Mr Thorold was found by the landlady. The woman pervaded the house like a fly, and was always to be discovered where she was least expected. She recognized Alan, curtsied and awaited instructions.

  ‘Take me,’ he said abruptly, ‘to Captain Lestrange.’

  ‘Lor’, sir!’ Mrs Timber, in her amazement, overstepped the bounds of class. ‘You said he was no friend of yours, sir.’

  ‘Nor is he. Come, show me his room. He is in, I suppose?’

  ‘Catch him wetting himself!’ she said, leading the way, with a sour smile. ‘He’s a furrin’ Jack-o-dandy, that he is. Not but what he don’t pay reg’lar. But I see the colour of his money afore my meat goes down his throat. This is the door, sir.’

  ‘Very good. And, Mrs Timber, should Joe Brill come, show him in here.’

  ‘Joe Brill!’ yelped the landlady, throwing up her hands. ‘You don’t mean to say as he’s back, Mr Alan? Well, I never did! And I thought he’d run away because of the murder.’

  ‘You think too much, Mrs Timber. Some day you will get yourself into trouble. Now go, and don’t forget my orders.’

  Chilled by the severity of his tone, Mrs Timber crept away, somewhat ashamed. Alan knocked at the door, heard the thin voice of Lestrange call out ‘Entrez’, and went in. The man was lying on the sofa, reading a French novel by the light of a petroleum lamp, and smoking a cigarette. When Alan appeared, he rose quickly into a sitting position, and stared at his visitor. Of all men, the last he had expected to see was the one he had so basely accused. The thought flashed into his mind that Thorold had come to have it out with him. But Lestrange, whatever his faults, was not wanting in a certain viperish courage. He rose to greet his enemy with a smile which cloaked many things.

  ‘Good-evening, Mr Thorold,’ he said, with a wary glance; ‘to what am I indebted for this visit?’

  ‘You shall know that before long,’ replied Alan, closing the door. He was now considerably cooler, and had made up his mind that more was to be got out of this man by diplomacy than by blind rage. ‘Have I your permission to sit down?’ he asked, with studied politeness.

  ‘Certainly, my dear sir. Will you smoke?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Have some refreshment, then?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Ah!’ sneered Lestrange, throwing himself again on the couch, ‘your visit is not so amiable as I fancied. You come as my enemy.’

  ‘Considering your behaviour, it would be strange if I came as anything else.’

  ‘My behaviour?’

  ‘I refer to your interview with Mr Phelps and Miss Marlow.’

  ‘Mademoiselle Lestrange, if you please.’

  ‘Ah, that is for you to prove!’

  ‘I shall prove it,’ said the other, quite unmoved, ‘in open court.’

  ‘That will be a harder task than you imagine,’ retorted Alan quickly. ‘But I am not here to discuss Miss Marlow’s parentage. My errand is to ask you why you have accused me of taking away the body of her father.’

  ‘Richard Marlow was not her father,’ replied the man with heat.

  ‘So you say—we can pass that point, as I told you before. I speak of the charge you have thought fit to bring against me.’

  ‘It is a true one. I am willing to take it into court.’

  ‘You may be brought into court sooner than you expect,’ remarked Alan drily; and from the sudden start the man gave he saw that the shot had gone home. ‘On what grounds do you base this charge?’

  ‘If Mr Phelps reported the interview correctly, you must know,’ said he sullenly.

  ‘To save time,’ retorted Alan, ‘I may as well admit that I do know. Jarks and Cicero speak the truth.’

  Lestrange looked surprised.

  ‘Then you admit your guilt?’

  ‘No; that is quite another thing. I admit that I was in Heathton on that night when Jarks saw me. What I came for does not concern you, Captain Lestrange; but I can prove also that I was back in Bournemouth before twelve o’clock. You will observe that I can establish an alibi.’

  ‘Upon my word, I really believed you guilty!’ cried the Captain with sincerity.

  ‘No doubt,’ was the scornful reply. ‘The wish is father to the thought. I will thank you not to accuse me falsely again.’

  ‘You have to explain away the finding of the lancet.’

  ‘That was stolen from my desk, with the key of the vault, by a man called Brown, whom I believe to have been guilty of a crime. You need not try to fasten the guilt upon me! I can defend myself—to use your favourite phrase—in open court, if necessary.’

  ‘Your word is enough,’ protested Lestrange. ‘I was wrong to accuse you!’

  ‘Very wrong. You did it out of spite—’

  ‘No, no! I really believed—’

  ‘What you wished yourself to believe,’ interrupted Alan in his turn. ‘It was my intention to have given you a thrashing, Captain Lestrange—’

  ‘Sir!’ the man started up white with rage.

  ‘But I have changed my mind,’ pursued Alan, without noticing the interruption. ‘I now intend to take another course. If you do not at once leave Heathton, I shall bring a charge against you of defamation of character.’

  ‘Oh!’ Lestrange shrugged his shoulders. ‘You are a true Englis
h shopkeeper. A man should protect himself by more honourable means.’

  ‘I know very well what I am about, sir. I wish to bring you into contact with the law. For that reason—unless you go—I shall bring the action.’

  ‘And what can the law do to me?’ he asked defiantly. ‘I have committed no wrong.’

  ‘You intend to. Oh! I know that you are innocent of taking Marlow’s body, and of murdering Warrender. But you are here to blackmail Miss Marlow on the threat of proclaiming her dead father a murderer.’

  ‘I am here to claim my daughter!’ shouted Lestrange fiercely. ‘Sophia Marlow I know nothing of; but Marie Lestrange is the daughter of Achille Lestrange, and I’—the Captain struck his breast—‘I am he!’

  While he was still posing in a very effective attitude, the door opened, and Mrs Timber ushered in Joe Brill. Hardly had it closed, when Brill took a step forward, staring at Lestrange as though he had seen a vision. Lestrange turned white, this time not with rage but with fear. In the silence which ensued Alan looked from one to the other, wondering what revelation was about to be made. Joe was the first to speak.

  ‘You swab!’ cried Joe. ‘D—d if it ain’t Captain Jean!’

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A PORTION OF THE TRUTH

  JOE was not in the least changed. Wherever he had been, in whatever nefarious transactions he had been engaged, he was still the mahogany-coloured, tough old sailor whom nothing could surprise or alarm. After having greeted Lestrange he hitched up his trousers in true nautical style and touched his forehead.

  ‘You wished to see me, sir,’ he said to Alan, and took a sidelong glance at the Captain. That polished scoundrel had, for once, lost his coolness, and, colourless with rage, was glaring at the seaman like a devil.

  ‘Joe,’ said the Squire, as soon as he could take in the situation, ‘you are making a mistake.’

  ‘Not me, sir! I knows a shark when I sees one.’

  ‘But this is Captain Achille Lestrange.’

  ‘Curse me if he is!’ cried Joe vigorously. ‘Achille weren’t no Captain. This one’s a Captain right enough, and a blazing fine lobster he is! Jean’s his name, sir, but he ain’t a Scotch girl, for all that. No, it’s the French lingo for John.’

  ‘I am Achille Lestrange,’ persisted the Captain, very shrill and very short of breath. ‘This man is a liar!’

  ‘Say that again, and I’ll knock the teeth down your throat!’ growled Joe, like an angry mastiff. ‘Achille be blowed! I know’d you twenty year ago in the islands, I did, and a bad lot you were then. Jean Lestrange—why, there never was a wuss lot! I never did think much of Achille, for all his money; but you—’

  Joe spat to show his disgust.

  ‘Then this man is not Sophy’s father?’ gasped Alan.

  ‘Oh, he sez that, does he, the lubber? Missy’s father! Why, he ain’t fit to be her shoeblack!’

  ‘Achille was the girl’s father,’ said Lestrange sullenly. He saw that it was useless to lie in face of Joe’s positive knowledge. ‘And if I’m not her father, I’m her uncle.’

  ‘That’s a d—d lie!’ put in Joe. ‘You weren’t no more nor Achille’s cousin. What you are to missy, I don’t know. But she won’t have nothing to do with you, you land-shark!’

  ‘Joe, do you mean to say your late master is not Sophy’s father?’

  ‘I do, sir. It’s got to come out somehow, if only to put a stop to that devil’s pranks. She’s the daughter of Achille Lestrange.’

  ‘Who was murdered by Marlow!’ finished the Captain savagely. ‘Ah, my friends, I have still some cards left.’

  ‘You’ll have no teeth left!’ growled Joe, making a step forward. ‘You’re a liar, Captain Jean—you always was! Mr Marlow—’

  ‘Beauchamp,’ corrected Lestrange, with a glance at Alan.

  ‘Beauchamp it is,’ continued Brill coolly. ‘Oh, you needn’t be afeared that I’m going to lie! But Mr Beauchamp never stabbed Munseer Achille, and you know it, you lubber! Let me get at him, Mr Thorold!’

  ‘No, no, Joe!’ Alan kept the irate seaman back. ‘We’ll deal with this gentleman in a better fashion. Sit down, Joe, while we talk it over.’

  Joe nodded, and sat down on a chair, which he placed directly before the door.

  With a glare that showed he noticed and resented this action, Lestrange resumed his seat. He was too clever a man not to recognize that Joe’s cunning would dislocate his plans. But he was evidently determined to fight to the last. At present he held his tongue, for he wanted to hear what Joe would say. He preferred, for the moment, to remain strictly on the defensive.

  It was with a thankful heart that Alan Thorold realized the value of Joe as an ally. At one time he had really believed that Lestrange was truly Sophy’s father, and although she would never have admitted the relationship, still it was satisfactory to know that the man had no claim on her obedience. The knowledge of Lestrange’s falsehood cleared the air somewhat. For one thing, it proved conclusively that the Captain had come to blackmail the girl. His claim to be her father was doubtless made in the hope that she would accompany him back to Jamaica, and would give him control of her money. Failing this—and Lestrange had long since realized that there was no doing anything with Sophy in a paternal way—there remained the chance that, to preserve Marlow’s memory from stain, she might buy his silence.

  Thus Lestrange argued, and Alan, with his eyes on the man’s expressive face, guessed his thoughts and answered them.

  ‘No, Lestrange,’ he said, with decision, ‘you won’t get one penny.’

  ‘We shall see about that,’ was the rejoinder.

  ‘Of course. We are going to see about it now. You will be brought to your bearings, sir. Joe, you say that this man is Jean Lestrange?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But may I ask, Mr Thorold, how you know about the shark?’

  ‘I have heard the story from his own lips, Joe. He claimed to be Achille Lestrange and Miss Sophy’s father.’

  ‘Did he, now, the swab! and you know, sir, how Mrs Lestrange ran away to Mr Beauchamp from the way her husband treated her?’

  ‘I know—’

  ‘Achille treated Zelia well,’ interrupted the Captain; ‘only too well.’

  ‘That’s another lie!’ retorted Joe. ‘He was fond-like of her the first year they were married, but it was you, Captain Jean, who made a mess of them. You made him jealous of Mr Beauchamp, and he treated her crool. No wonder she ran away, poor lass!’

  ‘Did the way Achille treated Zelia give Beauchamp any right to murder him?’

  ‘He didn’t murder him. You know he didn’t.’

  ‘He did, I say. Achille was found stabbed to the heart on the veranda of Beauchamp’s house. Zelia was dead, and your master took the child away to his yacht at Falmouth. You were on board.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joe coolly, ‘I wos; and it wos well for you, Captain Jean, that I wasn’t near the house that same evening. I’d ha’ wrung your neck, I would! Anyhow, master didn’t kill Munseer Achille.’

  ‘There was a warrant out for his arrest, however.’

  ‘I know that, Captain Jean, and it was you who got it out. And I know as you came over here after master from seeing his picter in the papers. We both knowed you were coming, Captain Jean.’

  Alan interposed:

  ‘Was that the West Indian letter, Joe?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it was. Master got a letter from a friend of his in Jamaica telling him this swab was after him to say as he’d murdered Munseer Achille, which,’ added Joe, deliberately eyeing Lestrange, ‘is a d—d lie!’

  ‘Then who killed Achille?’ sneered the Captain, quivering with rage.

  ‘I dunno rightly,’ replied Mr Brill stolidly. ‘I wasn’t in the house that night, or I’d ha’ found out. But master ran away, because he knew you’d accuse him out of spite. But Mr Barkham, of Falmouth, believed master was innocent, and know’d where he was, and what was his new name. ’Twas he wrote the letter saying as Captain Jean was on his way to Engl
and to make trouble.’

  ‘Barkham!’ muttered Lestrange. ‘Ah! he was always my enemy.’

  ‘A shark like you, Captain Jean, ain’t got no friends,’ remarked Joe sententiously.

  ‘Do you think that Barkham’s letter caused Mr Marlow’s death?’ asked Alan.

  ‘Do I think it, sir? Why, I knows it! After twenty years of hearing nothing, the shock, as you might say, killed my master.’

  ‘Then he was guilty, and my accusation was a righteous one to make,’ chimed in Lestrange. ‘A clean conscience fears nothing.’

  ‘Mr Beauchamp’s conscience was a darned sight cleaner nor yourn, Captain Jean, but you had the whip-hand of him, as all those in Jamaica thought he’d murdered Munseer Achille, from them quarrelling about him coming after his wife. But master didn’t do it—I swear he didn’t! More like you did it yourself,’ added Joe, with a look of contempt, ‘though I dare say you ain’t man enough to stick a knife into anyone.’

  Alan thought for a few minutes, then turned to Lestrange.

  ‘I think you must see that you have failed all round,’ he said quietly. ‘Your plot to pass as Miss Marlow’s father is of no use now. The accusation against me is not worth considering, as I have shown. If necessary, I can defend myself. On the whole, Captain Lestrange, you had better go back to Jamaica.’

  ‘Not without my price,’ said the adventurer.

  ‘Ah, blackmail! Well, I always thought that was at the bottom of it all. A man with clean hands and honourable intentions would not have joined hands with a confessed rogue like Cicero Gramp. But may I ask on what grounds you demand money?’

  ‘I can prove that Beauchamp killed my cousin.’

  ‘What good will that do? Beauchamp is dead, and beyond your malice.’

  ‘Ay, that he is,’ said Joe approvingly. ‘He’s gone where you won’t get him. I reckon you’ll go the other way when your time comes, you blasted swab!’

  Lestrange, writhing under these insults, jumped up and poured out a volley of abuse, which the seaman bore quite unmoved.

  ‘I’ll not go without my money,’ he raged, ‘and a good sum, too, otherwise I shall see the girl—’